Read Book

Chapter 5: Going beyond Time

No one remains forever in this world,O princess Daya,Life in this world is but a one night’s stayAt an inn.

Like a pearl of dew,It is in a moment gone.O Daya,Carry the divine in your heart.

Your father and your mother have departed,Now you too are preparing to go.It may be today, it may be tomorrow,Be astute, oh Daya.

Time has a big belly,It is never satiated.Kings, princes and emperors,It swallows them all.

As the winds blow through the sky-borne clouds,Unmaking them in myriad ways,Man’s life is in the hands of death,And he knows no peace.

There is a famous statement by Karl Marx that religion is the opium of the people. Karl Marx knew nothing about religion, because everything but religion is an intoxicating opium. The race for wealth, the race for high position - these are all drugs. Religion is the only way of waking up from their intoxication.

We live in dreams, and because of this we don’t become acquainted with the truth. Happiness is not possible unless we know truth; happiness is the fragrance which comes from our beginning to know truth. If we live in dreams, we will only create sorrow - because happiness cannot be born out of something that doesn’t exist. These dreams which have no existence will cause us pain time and time again. You can try to be happy in a million different ways, but it will not happen. That which is not is not. Only that which is, is.

“Religion” means the search for that which is. “Non-religion” means the desire for that which is not.

Man asks for many things which have no existence, and there is no way they can exist. And even if you do manage in some way to arrange your dreams, you will still remain empty inside because who has ever been satisfied by dream food? How can you ever quench your thirst with dreams? You can delude yourself with your dreams, you can become entangled with them, you can manage to pass your life in dreams, they will keep you busy - but you will never attain anything, you will never reach the shore.

A dream has no shores. Truth has a shore. The difficulty is that when someone is running around in dreams he is moving away from the truth. Dreams are the opposite of truth. So when you run around in dreams you are depriving yourself of the truth day after day. These dreams can never be fulfilled and you remain deprived of that which could have been fulfilled. Because of your demands, you are unable to become what you could have become.

You can only become that which you already are on some deep level. A seed will become a flower, but only the flower that is inherent in the seed. Right now it is hidden, one day it will manifest.